IN HIDING

New Zealand Mail, Issue 1676, 13 April 1904, Page 9

IN HIDING

(By Dalrymple Beigrave.)

I do not wish to tell in detail the iircum,stances wnich turned me, once a sub* altern in a crack regiment, into a wretched outcast living' in a back street in Kentish Town, spending my days in a frowsy garret, and only daring to go out alter nightfall. it is sufficient to siay that I was. first of all, wickedly foolish and extravagan.. and then, in a moment of what, when, looking back to it, 1 honestly believe have been little other than maun ess. j. became criminal. When i was pest ere., and worried by debts and duns, I used re think that no one's lot could have been, more wretched than mine then was. but ±. iound my mistake when I wrote —well, it’s better to call a spade a spade-—wneu I forged another man's name on a nil.. Row any human being, unless -he has the plunderer’s instincts strongly in him (which I declare I never had), can be- such a fool as to* jump front the frying pan into the fire, ad become liable to the criminal as well as to the civil law. seems .row to me to be inexplicable. To commit a crime which must be found out, in order to pay a debt, is the action of an insane person. I did it, however, and it was not till the fatal act could not be recalled, and I had uttered the forged bill, that I seemed to realise what i had done, and how inevitable was my punishment and disgrace. Then, when I knew what I was and what must happen, without taking anyone into my confidence (though in the regiment I had one or two staunch comrades, who, I believed even then, would have stood my friends and helped) to shield me from disgrace I had brought on myself), I ’•■an away. I shall never forget my feelings when, in a cold, grey, autumn morning, I walked from the terminus into* that torribly dreary dull thoroughfare, Euston Road. No criminal in the dock could ever have felt more bitterly disgraced than I did then. It seemed to me that the cabmen. who hailed me read guilt, in my face, as with my Gladstone in my hand 1 walked past them.

It was no goad my taking a cab, for where was I to tell the man. to uxive to? AVhere could I slink away tot I had only a five-pound note and some silver the rest of the money from that miserable bill bad been paid away. I must hide - away where I should be likely to see no one who knew me. to was an instinct to get lost in u crowd that sent me up to London, and I wandered on without knowing or caring where I went, until I got into the dreary district where I afterwards took up ny abode. Then the notion struck me that a man in my position could live in such a district for a lifetime, and walk about among those dingy little streets, without meeting a soul who - ever had seen me be to re. I had almost rung the bell at a house - where I saw lodgings to let. when 1 remembered that my get-up would be Tlsuited to the class of board and longing which 1 should require. A suit of clothing that did credit to the most expensive tailor in Bond Street, and a great-coat which in his) bill had been described m several lines, and charged for accordingly, would appeal to a landlady’s curiosity. I thought for a few seconds and then wandered back again, till I got to a crowded thoroughfare, where I lound a dealer in old clothes. I don’t know how much that man got the best of liis bargain, ,>ut I left the shop minus my great-coat, Gladstone bag, .and its contents, which were two suits of clothes and come shirts; etc.,, with a seedy-looking, ill-made overcoat on which imparted the desired look of shabbiness to my person, and with a useful addition to my somewhat, limited capital. My next step was alt another shop ‘o buy a cheap black bag and a suit of slop clothes. Then I walked back again vo Kentish Town, selected a house with a bill of “Lodgings to Let,” over the door, took a frowsy bedroom, and- began the most miserable period of my existence. The first few days were the worst. Then, thanks to the garrulous slavey, I thought of an employment which to some extent took my thoughts away from myself ..nd my wretched troubles. "Missis was a-saying as she takes it how as you’re a literary gent; she hopes you isn’t, for she don’t want no more of them about the- ’ousel” said the Blavey one morning as she brought up my uninviting breakfast. "You’ve had them as lodgers, then?” said 1. longing to talk -to someone, for 1 had hardly said one word for three days. "AVe ’ave ’ad one. drat him; bless r er, ’e wasn’t no good ter anyone, not as ne didn’t make money sometimes, for he'd stay away fer days together, and then get brought home drunk in a. cab. which showed he ’ad money, or leastways the spending of it, but he paid nothink, and last of all he staid away altogether, leaving natliink behin’ ’ini but what he called manuscripts!” “Ha used to make money, though?’’ I asked, seeing or thinking I saw some wav of prolonging in v existence after five pounds and the proceeds of the Gladstone hag had vanished. “Yes, ’e made it, I think, for he* used to write and write all day, and nights sometimes, and I don’t think lie wasi one of them, as ’ud work for nothink; it was a,seeing as you stop indoors so as made missus think you was one of 'em.” That day I went out and bought a pen. _ a pot of ink and some foolscap. One can start at literature with a very modest capital. In fact, it cost me more first andi last in postage than in anything else. It was when I was returning with the implements of my intended trade that for the first time since I had taken to live in Kentish Town I saw someone whom I had known before. It was pretty little Kitty Carter, of the chorus of the Vanity Theatre, whom I had met at several parties a% Richmond, and on a houseboat, up the river. There was no chance for me to avoid her, for she recognised me at once and; shook me warmly by the hand. “Fancy meeting yon in this out-of-The- v way part of the world, where I live at

home 'with my mother. Look here, 1 want to have a talk with you. Let'® go ani have a drink. I know" a decent place where wo can .get one.” . . It was a relief to'-me to hear the bright little woman talk, though there was something bitter in the memories of old days which her voice revived. So I allowed hei to guide me to a pastry cook s, where I sent for a brandy and soda, and she could get a glass of port wine. She didn t like going to a pub down there, she said, because she always had lived in the neighbourhood. ~ __ “iWe can talk here,” she said. We were seated in a little back room where there were three velvet-covered chairs, a table with a curiously spotted cloth, and a, plate of forbidding pastry on it, a lookingglass fringed with a fly-blown coloured paper festooning, and three weird something or the other photographed landscapes. “I heard all about your going to grief, and what a silly old fool you made of yourself. A fellow called Chownes, wao gays he is in your regiment—awful beast, I hate him—told it me yesterday. lie said that the police had been alter you, and that they believed you had gone abroad. He wished they had caught you,, he said. I think tliat brute don't like you. and! would do you a bad turn, if be could.” That was tire first piece of news I had heard of the regiment or of anything else that I had known before, and certainly it was strange enough that new® . should have reached me in such a, way so soon, for it was not long since I disappeared, but sometimes we find the world wonderfully small. Kitty reassured me as to- my not being likely to meet a soul I knew, then after we had chatted about old times deftly enough, asked me .some rather searching questions ...about my po si tion . and prospects. The highhearted) little woman wanted 1 to know if I was hard up; she was awfully flush just then, she id.. Of course, I would not take her money, though her kindness in offering it did me a lot of good, and I told her that I /as going in for writing, and 1 hoped to make money at it. "That's right, old chappie; I know lots of Johnnies who make their oof that way. It ain’t because you've gone wrong you can't get right again,” she said, with her bright eyes sparkling with good nature. And then she said good-bye and left me a great deal the better for meeting her. I went back to my garret, and then and there began, and for many a long day I wrote and wrote. I tried my hand at short stories, and wrote out all the regimental legends I could remember, and bright stories of military life I had heard at mess. It was cruel enough in that dirty bedroom to recall the time when 1 heard .those yarns—jovial nights and good 1 dinners at our well-appointed mess, cliampagne, wax-lights, and our band, one o c the best in the service, playing in the barrack square outside. I was the most popular youngster in the?, regiment then, and the most promising. Well, I wrote and wrote, and in a week or two Jhe manuscripts which 1 sent out to different periodicals began to come back to me. How I hated the sight of them. The money I had began to get less and less. What was .1 to do when it was all done ? (live myself up to the police ? No, better than that—slink up in the darkness* to the London I used to know in the old days and take a jump off Waterloo Bridge. I remembered how the river used to look at .night when I drove over it in a hansom to catch the cold meat train to Aidershot. There was one story, however, which j. remembered very well: X. had heard it in a country house told by a lady who was certainly the most brilliant storyteller I had ever encountered. It was a marvellously striking tale, and it took a strange hold on me. I told it one night at mess -with great effect. How well I remembered that evening. What a warm night it was. That was the night when I earned, the ill-will of that fellow, Ohownes, of whom, Kitty Carter spoke to me. He was a surly, ill-far. d, loutish youngster, and very unpopular With us all, and that evening in the small hours we had) a court-martial on him in the- ante-room We condemned him to be taken to the barrack square and pumped upon. And the sentence was then and there carried out. I acted the part of president of the court-martial, and Ohownes chose to think I was ms chief enemy. “I'll be even with you for this some day, see if I won't!” he said) to me, and he made no further complaint, but there .was an ugly, vindictive look in his face when he spoke to me, which made me faelieve that T had made an enemy for " life. But to go back to my wretched life: . I wrote that ghost story; and 1 sent it io a paper that I had never tried to contribute to before. I had seen a copy oc the paper, in which there was a, statement of what it would give for a story, little enough, but still sufficient.to keep me alive for some time. I remember the day after that story was finished and sent off I had two other returned manuscripts, and I lost hope altogether, and left off working. I used to sleep all day, . and wander about the streets half the night, seeing all the misery and) wretchedness of London as I had never seen it before, and aa no one can see it who has not sunk low, andi did not know that he must soon sink to the lowest depths. One evening, just as I left my lodgings, a placard of the newspaper to which I had sent my story caught my eye, on which in large letters was written The Squire's Two Ghosts/' the name of ny story. One must be down in oners luck indeed if one is not cheered at seeing oneself in print for the first time. Fop the time being I forgot that my life was a ruined and hopeless one. I eagerly bought a copy of the paper, and! going into a public house, where I ordered a whisky, I sat down, smoked a pipe, and greedily read my story. I could) write, many more stories now. I thought. Why should not I gain Taifiie and reputation? And for a moment or * two I® forgot that I was a shrinking fugitive from justice, and) that fame and reputation were out of my reach. The next day I got a cheque from the paper, and! I sat down, and began to write again in, better spirits than I had ueen before. k But that cheaue wn«, by no means •••il

I got for that story. About a week afuer it appeared, when the first glow os triumph I experienced had begun to grow cold again, I came home one evening to find the lodginghouse servant with a mesj sage for me. “There is two gentlemen, she said, calling me by the name I bad taken the lodging in, and in which I had contributed m.y stories to the paper “as has called to see you; they left word they comes from the office of Lonr Shots, and they say they will call again at nine. For a second the fugitive's instinct ot dislike of meeting anyone cam© over me. But I conquered it. It was practically impossible that the people at the newspaper office could have anything to do with my previous history. They had com© about the story, and were probably going to make me an offer for a series of stories. Perhaps for a, novel. As a favour 1 got th© landlady to let me have the us© of a sitting-room, that was then unlet, to receive my visitor® in, and I waited for them there in a state of enjoyable mspens©. Punctuallv at nine o’clock I heard a ring at the bell, and then someone asking for me in the passage. _ Then there wen© two heavy steps coining up me stair®. I thought that it was very gratifying that these gentlemen should tans so much trouble to see me. But, looking back, I don't believe I was much surprised, for it really seem eel to me that my contribution to Long Shots was clever enough to startle the town, and the thought that I could! not go about m Society, andi hear people talking about .’t, sometime® would be quite galling to me. Hungry for praise from these gentlemen who had come to see me, I opened the sitting-room door, and two men walked into the room. Then all my hopefulness left me. A big, ill-looking, over-dressed young man caught hold of my arm. “It is all right, this is Mr. Dormer, late of shire Regiment, the man you want for forgery,” he said to his companion, and then, looking into my race and laughing heartily, he added, “I read your precious penny a line, by good luck, andi I remembered your story, and 1 remembered the night when you told it. I told you I would be even with you, and I think I am now.” It was Ohownes. the man I had made an enemy of, and his stupid countenance lit up with malicious triumph as he glanced from m© to his companion, whom I rightly guessed to be a detective policeman. “Yes, my dear friend Dormer, you're a very clever fellow,; you were very clever when you tried me that night, and vou were very clever when you wrote that story. One of our fellows read your penny a line, and talked about it at mess, and said that he had read in a paper th© yarn that poor old Dormer told after mess one night. The others said that they supposed that the fellow who had told it to you had written it, and that all good stories got into print sooner or later, but it occurred to me, my dear friend, that you were probably hard up in hiding, and would be glad enough to turn any story you knew into a few shillings. " ell, I went to th© office of the paper, and I got hold of a felllow whom I managed to square, and he let me have a look at the manuscript, and then I knew I had got you, and I went to Scotland A ard, and saw our friend here. You used to think I was a fool, didn’t you, when vou used to cut your cursed jokes about me at mess, but I've been clever enough to pay the debt I owe you; not that j”b paid yet, but it will be when I go to Old Bailey, and see you sent to penal servitude and I will be there. I won't miss it if I have to travel a thousand miles to see it. Forger! Thief!” But Chownes did not finish his abuse, for I slung my left hand out straight from my shoulder, and hit him between the eyes, and knocked him down in a heap in the corner of the little sittingroom. H© got up again and was beginning to talk to me, when the detective stopped him. “Look here; we don't want no more ot that; this gent'a got to be arrested, and arrested he is; but we don't want any more of your talk, an*i yon/d better ta-cc your hook,” and then be told me that if X would come with, binx ■without any bother, he would take a, hansom, and drive me up to Bow Street. Of course, I promised what he wanted, and I was glad enough to get away from Chownes, who stood watching us into a cab, and laughing at me. Miserable though 1 was, it was some slight consolation to me to watch his swelling face, and know tliat I had giv€<n him that black ‘Don't know whether that; gent would be a good friend; 'spent not, but he r s what I call a darned bad enemy,” said the detective to in© as we drove to Bow Street. I don't know after all, however, that Chownes did me such a bad turn. Some of my old brother officer® were very generous in making the best terms they could with the people I had wronged, and In consequence the prosecution did what they could to let me down lightly. The sentence the court passed on me was a very merciful one and; when I came out a free man again, though I bad the prison taint upon me I think I felt better than when I was hiding in Kentish Town. Since then I have worked pretty hard with my pen but I have never written any thing that had such an effect on my life as) did my first story.